Why do people say graphics in emulators look better than the real system?

I say its false. Just look at this. Sega and SNES emulators I am mainly talking about. In fullscreen its just much worst, and its ugly. That is why I play my games windowed.


Sightly Blurry Generic Graphics Plugin it comes with.
SuperSaI makes the games look unatural and artificial.
Most plugins just do too good of a job to the point where its overdone.
Scanlines are too dark execpt in MAME where you can control Brightness.


I even tried to play some emulators on a LCD, and its still the same. What am I missing?

Console graphics from that era run on very low resolutions, and PC monitors are high resolution devices, so that's why they look a little worse.

I wouldn't say they are too bad though. I don't have an issue with most emulators as long as I enforce the aspect ratio and use scanlines. It looks like the original to me at that point, even if it doesn't fill the entire screen.

If your problem with scanlines is that they are too dark, try using a lighter scanline setting if available (ZSNES should have several), and maybe google up a monitor calibration web site to make sure your monitor is not actually took dark. And you can always up the gamma or brightness manually too for your play session.

Some emulators offer filters as well (2xsai, eagle, etc)

Its does not matter to me anymore. I use PC to TV converter so this problem is gone forever for me. The games have better color detail on TV, and my Monitor is just old. I should have done this years ago. Kinda nice playing Arcade games on TV BTW.

Yeah.. Something I've been wanting to do is play some old Arcade classics on the bigger HD TV's. I have an HD capable which works pretty nice, and a friend also has a nice newer TV it would be great to play on.

WW2 FPS's look great on large TV's too.. Though I've been itching to see what DOOM looks like

Have all my emu's set up on the 42" LCD in the living room. The excellent thing with Mame on these displays is that they are big enough to use the bezel artwork and still have a decent sized playing area.

My current game space.

Doom 3, Call of Duty 2, and Far Cry are all fantastic on a big LCD with surround sound. Doom 3 in particular is amazing with the lights turned off and the sound turned up. Very immersive.

DOOM 3 is OK but I am more of an original kinda guy.. I remember saving up and buying the first two games on CD-ROM like it was yesterday.. Such a helpful little kid I was, hehe.. I did good with DOOM ][, got it on sale for $20 off at Best Buy.

I didn't even have a sound card.. I think those PC speaker sounds and dead silence (no music) made it way more scarrier than with a sound card

I've never played DOOM, so I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but if there are sudden movements accompanied by sudden, loud noises (i.e: things jumping in from windows like in Resident Evil) then sound would be better...right? (Though, I'm not certain I know what PC speaker sounds you're talking about so I am probably wrong. )

I'm talking about primitive beeps, boops, screeches, etc..

And no sound makes it scary because in the game WITH sound, you can hear them growling when the enemy is near. With no sound you don't hear or know anything is there until you walk right around the corner, or you get attacked from behind.

Half-Life / Half-Life 2 were Ok because they made things jump out at you too, and didn't use sounds like growls or anything all the time.